HHH

I'll post a longer Horribly Hilly Hundred report, with pictures, later today - right now, I'm starving and I need a Panera Bread cinnamon crunch bagel with hazelnut cream cheese. Right at the point I'd convinced myself that riding home in the SAG car wouldn't be shameful, someone had chalked "You'll forget pain - you'll remember quitting" onto the road. It sounds like a silly high school football cliche, but when you're dehydrated and cramping, you're more susceptible to high school football cliches I guess. I turned it into my mantra for the next forty miles, finished without walking up any of the climbs, and chopped over an hour off my time from two years ago.

We came home from the ride to find cat vomit in no less than four places and Alvin, our younger cat, laying on his side and breathing really heavily. When he saw up, he hissed and growled and generally told us to fug off. Our regular vet isn't open on Saturday afternoons or Sundays, so we called the Emergency Animal Clinic, who told us to get him there as soon as possible. They quickly diagnosed him with a really serious urinary crystal blockage and had him anesthetized within 10 minutes to start flushing his bladder. If this had been an overnight cycling weekend or we had waited until Monday morning to make an appointment with our regular vet, the blockage would have poisoned him.

Alvin's still at the cat hospital this morning, but may get to come home tonight, depending on how well the flushing went last night. Emmett, our other cat, hasn't had the house to himself for three years, and seems very concerned about Alvin's absence.